Surviving War Surviving Peace the Central Highlanders of Vietnam
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2 Surviving War Surviving Peace THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDERS OF VIETNAM An exhibit in the UC Irvine Langson Library Muriel Ansley Reynolds Exhibit Gallery May - November 2007 Curated by Joseph Carrier, Ph.D. T H E U C I R V I N E L IBRARIES • I R V I N E , C ALIFORNIA • 2007 FOREWORD elcome to the UCI Libraries’ spring 2007 exhibit, Surviving War, Surviving Peace: The Central Highlanders of Vietnam. This Wexhibit of photographs of ethnic minority groups in the central highlands of Vietnam was inspired by a recent donation to our Southeast Asian Archive from Joseph Carrier, who holds a Ph.D. from UCI’s School of Social Sciences. Dr. Carrier took most of the photographs during the 1960s, followed by some in January 2007, while visiting the highlands and getting to know members of some of the ethnic groups who live there. Although he was in Vietnam during the War era of the 1960s working for The RAND Corporation, his doctoral work in Anthropology at UCI also informed his deep interest in ethnographic issues. The opening program on May 15th is a very special one. Dr. Carrier and two friends who also spent time in the central highlands will form a panel, each commenting on his or her individual experiences during the Vietnam War era of the 1960s and 1970s. Each was in Southeast Asia, and in the highlands, for a very different reason, but all had their own lives deeply affected by the highlanders whom they came to know. The program will be moderated by Professor Charles Wheeler of UCI’s Department of History, whose own doctoral work on early trade in Vietnam brought him in close contact with the people of the central highlands during his research travels. I hope you find that Surviving War, Surviving Peace enhances your understanding of this moving example of the members of an ethnic minority group struggling to maintain their cultural identity and quality of life during a time of complex change in their country. On behalf of both the Partners of the UCI Libraries and the entire library staff, we welcome you to this exhibit and invite you to return to view others in the future. Gerald J. Munoff University Librarian SURVIVING WAR, SURVIVING PEACE THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDERS OF VIETNAM he historical significance of my photographs of the indigenous peoples living in Vietnam’s central highlands is that they present a Tway of life that is mostly gone. This exhibit illustrates some of the changes that have taken place among the ethnic minority peoples living in the highlands during the past 45 years. Referred to as highlanders in English and montagnards in French, they live in the Truong Son—a mountainous region in South Vietnam known as the Long Mountains that extends south of the 17th parallel to the delta of the Mekong River. It is bordered on the west by the mountains in Laos and Cambodia and on the east by an elongated narrow coastal plain. The ethnic central highlander peoples resemble other Southeast Asians such as Cambodians, Indonesians, and Malays, who also speak similar languages. The highlander population is made up of at least 21 distinct ethnic groups; those represented in this exhibit include the Bahnar, Bru, Cua, Hre, Jarai, Katu, Mnong, Rhade, Sedang, and Stieng. During the time period 1965-1967, before the most serious disruptions of the American Vietnam War took place, the ethnic highlander population was estimated at 807,000. Since the reunification of the country in spring 1975, official policies of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam have led to the resettling of “over one million lowland Vietnamese in the highlands in order to bring Vietnamese culture and lowland adaptation to the highlanders. Highlanders are being moved into Vietnamese settlements to enable their ‘transition to socialism,’ a process of Vietnamization that threatens what remains of their shattered world” (Gerald Canon Hickey, 1993). I first met highlanders in August 1962 during one of my first work assignments to evaluate a joint U.S./Vietnamese military medical civic action project in various Hre villages located in the mountainous areas of Quang Ngai Province, a coastal province in central South Vietnam. I took the photos during the years I worked in Vietnam on and off from 1962 to 1973. I was in country a total of about three years: from July-December 1962; January-December 1965; January-June 1966; January-June 1967; and March 1972-March 1973. Except for the 1972-1973 time period, I worked on projects related to the war and counterinsurgency in South Vietnam for 1 The RAND Corporation and was based in Saigon (now Ho-Chi-Minh City). From spring 1972 to spring 1973, I worked as the onsite Staff Officer for the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Effects of Herbicides in South Vietnam and was again based in Saigon. It is important to note that most of the photos were not taken for any of my work assignments. The fact is, however, I never traveled to the highlands without a camera. While traveling there on work assignments, I used whatever free time I had available to visit villages and photograph the highlander peoples. I also used vacation time to visit the highlands with anthropologist Gerry Hickey while he was engaged in ethnographic fieldwork for The RAND Corporation, as well as while he was delivering needed food and clothing to highlander refugees in Kontum, Pleiku and Ban Me Thuot. I was thus able to take additional photos of the highlander peoples and their activities. Joseph Carrier, May 2007 The main exhibit case includes four sections: a dedication, followed by chronological sections focusing on traditional highlander culture, their experience as refugees during the Vietnam War, and their life as of 2007. The four smaller cases focus on a group of four people who have worked with, and been deeply affected by, the highlanders: Joe Carrier, Jackie Maier, Mike Little, and Gerald Canon Hickey. Surviving War, Surviving Peace was curated by Joe Carrier. Most photographs in the exhibit were Dr. Carrier’s gift to the Southeast Asian Archive in the UCI Libraries, where copies are available for research use. The three-dimensional artifacts and some other items were generously loaned by Dr. Carrier, Jackie Maier, and Mike Little. This exhibit celebrates their dedication to and love for the central highlanders of Vietnam. 2 DEDICATION have dedicated both my collection of photographs and this exhibit to the memory of Nay Luett, Minister for Development of Ethnic Minorities I for South Vietnam from 1971 to 1975. Luett was a valiant and charismatic Jarai leader who struggled against all forms of tyranny in support of highlander peoples. He did what he could to help his people adapt and survive during this most violent episode in their history. He and his family were on the American Embassy list to be evacuated by the U.S. military during the crucial few days in late April 1975 when the North Vietnamese forces were moving their tanks into Saigon. For unknown reasons, the Americans never came, and they were left behind. After the ensuing takeover of South Vietnam by military forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnamese government officials still living in Saigon were rounded up. Nay Luett was arrested by security police and sent to a communist labor camp. He spent the next eight years working at hard labor and is believed to have died in the camp in 1983 under horrific circumstances. 1. Map of the central highlands region of Vietnam. Adapted from: Gerald Canon Hickey. Free in the Forest: Ethnohistory of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, 1954-1976. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982, p. 321. 2. Nay Luett speaks to evacuated refugees in Pleiku. Two photographs by Joe Carrier, May 1972. 3. Jackie Maier learning Cua language from villagers near Tra Bong. Photographer unknown, 1966. 4. Joe Carrier with members of his adopted Cambodian family on their farm near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Photograph by Gail Myzoe, 2007. 5. Mike Little on road patrol between Pleiku and An Khe. Photographer unknown, 1968. 3 TRADITIONAL HIGHLAND CULTURES y photographs taken from 1962 to 1967 document the traditional life of the ethnic highlanders prior to the havoc Mwreaked on their culture and homes during the Vietnam War. As the images reveal, they were village oriented and lived in longhouses built up off the ground on pilings. The space under the house has many uses, such as storage for forest products and artifacts and as a place to pen animals. Each village was governed by elders whose authority was primarily founded on supernatural beings or spirits, but also on their personal skills, intelligence, courage, and reputation for wisdom. Historically, highlanders lived in harmony with nature and were self- sufficient. They hunted and trapped in the forests, farmed rice, cotton, and other agricultural products in cleared land nearby their villages, and grew fruit and vegetables in kitchen gardens. Their settlements were carefully located near springs or streams so they could have a source of good water and could bathe. Their longhouses were constructed of materials available in the forest: hardwood, bamboo, thatching grasses, and strands of rattan. The highlanders also made their own clothes, mats, and carrying baskets, and forged carpentry, hunting and farm tools made of iron. The women wove textiles from cotton (blankets, women’s skirts, slings for carrying infants, jackets, and loincloths), and the men wove sleeping mats and baskets from rattan, made fish traps from bamboo, and made crossbows for hunting from tropical hardwoods. Working iron and carving wood for handles, they made machetes, hoes, and knives of varying length for different uses.